


New Game: Start

by Teddy_Feathers



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Post-Canon, Reader Is Not Frisk, Still under the mountain, Weird dark dream, heads up display is a thing, post all routes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6230827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teddy_Feathers/pseuds/Teddy_Feathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So... More to be explained as we go along. But essentially Frisk could manipulate time right? Because of sheer determination...Just not as well as Flowey could. Frisk was just a kid, possessed by a malevolent spirit that they eventually succumbed to and were destroyed by. </p><p>They're gone now, but Flowey remains keeping the monsters in an endless time loop for his own amusements. </p><p>Sans decides to take matters into his own hands. The next soul that had a core of determination HE would control and manipulate.</p><p>So...basically you play the game, and Sans is playing you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Had a weird dark dream lead to a weird dark idea. Feed back would be nice... and even though some things will stay the same, a lot will change. Because you're an adult, because Sans is trying to stop Flowey, because the story isn't as simple as all that.

Climbing the mountain - Well it was more of a large hill right outside the city, but kids had dubbed in the mountain for generations now – in the dark on a full moon night, on the eve of Friday the 13th, was a once in a life time opportunity, a rite of passage, a… _who am I fooling? It was a dare!_

You mentally berated yourself for falling for it yet again. As soon as someone said dare, challenge, I bet you… You would take it every time. More often than not you’d win too. But the more you win, the more somebody wants to take you down, and then you find yourself walking to the top of the mountain on a cool night planning to sit on the cold ground from midnight to three am just to see if the ghost haunting the place would eat you alive like the legends said.

Not that you or anyone else believed that. There were just bragging rights at stake and who could pass those up? _Not me._

Despite the bright light of the moon you missed the rock in your path and tripped. And even though you put your hands out to catch yourself… There was no impact. You opened your eyes to the sensation of rushing darkness, blinked, and saw what looked like a bed of flowers.

If you hit that, you’d be okay. You aimed yourself… were full of determination…you’d make it… Three inches above the bright yellow flowers there was a flash of brilliant light.

* * *

 

Then rushing darkness. Then a bed of flowers - you aimed for it… you landed safely.

 _What just…?_ You shook off the odd feeling of not deja vu and looked up. A rocky crevice was above you shining down sunlight. _Must have passed out when I fell. Didn’t know there were caves inside the hill._ You shrugged and tried to get a look around, but it was pretty dark everywhere but the pool of light and flowers you were sitting in.

You stood and stretched feeling surprisingly good for having fell sixteen or so feet and having apparently slept on the ground. _Least I won the dare. Nothing attacked me._ _Now how do I …_ Your cell had no reception of course.

There was a muffled scraping noise behind you, jerking your attention away from your phone, and causing you to spin around. Light reflected off of two eyes in the darkness, set about a head shorter than you. Putting a hand to your chest you grinned. “Gosh you scared me! Thought you’d sneak up and chase me off the mountain last night huh buddy? Jokes on you cause we’re both stuck now.” Despite your teasing tone you were glad that someone else was down here with you. Nothing worse than being the only one missing. With two of you gone there’d be searchers out by noon and…

The figure stepped into the light. You took several steps out of it. It was a skeleton. Not even a proper skeleton. He was too squat. His bones were too wide, and he was smiling. Not a normal skeletal grin, but smiling like a smug bastard with a secret. _Anger. Yes. Anger is better than fear._

You tried to recover, and gave Mr. Bones a weak smile. “Whoops. Guess the jokes on me and the mountain really is haunted.” He reached out a hand towards you and the room went dark.

No. Not dark.

Monochrome.

The skeleton’s fuzzy hooded coat had been blue, but now it looked back. Looking down at yourself, you saw that you were also devoid of color. Until a bright red light started shining from your chest, emerging in the form of a… a valentine’s day heart to hover just in front of you.

You looked back up at the skeleton to see his left eye was glowing, with blue flickering like flame from his eye socket. In between you appeared hologram looking things. Like a heads up display in a game. [Fight][Act][Inventory][Mercy] the soft orange writing proclaimed.

You didn’t know what to do. What was going on. But as the skeleton began shuffling closer to you, you knew you had to do _something._ It was that or give up. And you’d never been one for giving up.

You reached out and touched the option [Mercy] it didn’t decompress. It wanted to. You could feel it, but it was like the button was stuck or something. You hit it again. _Mercy! I want mercy please Mr. Skeleghost._

He was almost to you. You had to do something. You lunged for [Fight]. He got there first.

He gripped the option and tore it away from you. You could feel it. Feel the will to fight leave as he tore it in half and it vanished.

That was a bad thing. You could tell. You still felt like you. Still determined to win, still had the never give up attitude, but now you couldn’t fight back. You hit the [mercy] option again. This time it sank.

All the options vanished. The red heart faded back into your chest, the sunlight filled the cave again. The skeleton no longer looked as much like the specter of death. In fact with his eye sockets lidded like that he looked harmless. You weren’t fooled.

You took several steps back. You wanted to be mad, wanted to want to throw things or hit him, but you didn’t feel like it anymore. That was probably a bad sign. Instead you frowned at him in confusion. “What just happened?”

“let me see your soul for a sec and i’ll tell ya.” His teeth didn’t move, but you didn’t think that was because he was a hallucination caused by your fall. He felt too solid. Too real. Too much of a threat.

“No.” You said, sure that was a bad idea. Positive even. No matter what you believed about souls, if he was asking for it, there was no way you were giving it to him.

His grin grew wider and he moved closer. “Yes.”

The light spilled from your chest again. It still looked impressive, even without the black back drop.

He reached out and gripped it and you didn’t fight him. You couldn’t fight him. _IS THAT WHAT HE DID TO ME?_

The skeleton squeezed your soul – assuming that’s what that was - in his hands. Everything hurt. Then everything shattered. Then everything froze.

 

In that moment, where it felt like you needed to gasp for air in a vacuum, everything had started to fade away but wasn’t quite gone yet. In that moment you watched as the skeleton, eye flickering blue again, held the shattered pieces of your soul and reached up to grab and take the ghostly words appearing in front of your face. Reset and Load.

Again came that tearing sensation. You didn’t know what he was doing, but he was obviously taking things way from you. Things you needed. Or at the very least things that were yours.

* * *

 

Time resumed. There was a rushing sensation in the darkness. Yellow flowers below you. You aimed and landed.

You shot to your feet. Looked around. Caught the pinpricks of light in the darkness. Not a reflection off eyes, but some weird inner light of his own. The skeleton stepped forward.

“it worked.”

What was going on? A night that had been all in good fun had ended, and you found yourself in some sort of weird nightmare. A game where the rules weren’t exactly clear.

“You said you’d explain.” Your words sounded bold in your ears. A challenge. No you didn’t, couldn’t fight him for whatever reason. But you were still full of determination.

“true…” A boney finger reached up to tap his chin thoughtfully. “well. the heart of the matter is that from now until you get out of the mountain you’re going to do what i say. i don’t gotta bone to pick with you, so listen and i won’t have to give you a… hearing aide.”

That didn’t explain anything. Your fists won’t curl at your sides, so you cross your arms instead. “Why should I do anything you say? I don’t get what’s going on or what you’ve done to me, but even if you’re trying to play god – there’s nothing that says I’ve got to play along!” Determination coursed through your veins. You wouldn’t be afraid or intimidated by some short, skeleton, ghost, _thing,_ that thought he could control you. You were your own person. Always had been. And you never backed down from a challenge.

The lights went out in his sockets. His eyes went dark and empty, except for that ominous blue flame. He snapped his fingers.

* * *

 

Rushing darkness.

Falling.

Flowers.

Landing here was getting old.

“You’ll play my way, or you’ll start over. From the beginning. As many times as it takes.” His eyes were still dark voids but there was no flame. Yet.

Grumbling you stood again and faced him squarely. “I don’t know what kind of game we’re playing, but I’m going to _win.”_ Just to spite him.

He chuckled at your attitude. Then vanished.

_Fucking ghost._

You looked up one last time. There was the sunlight, but no way out that way. So it was time to move forward.

Taking a step into the darkness … You ran into a wall. A large, fuzzy, breathing wall.

“Oh my child, are you okay?” Gripping your arms carefully to keep you steady were paws. Not hands. Fur covered, claw tipped, paws. You looked up into the kind eyes of a vaguely goat shaped creature.

That certainly wasn’t a ghost. What in the world was going on here?

Finding your voice you managed to reply “What the hell are you?” your tone could have been less rude, but you’d had a long day already. There was hurt in her eyes for a moment before -

* * *

 

Rushing darkness.

There was no skeleton waiting for you this time, but when you tried to leave again, there was the goat lady. Again she caught you, and again she asked after your health with all the concern of a kind, considerate old lady. Your bad day wasn’t her fault.

“Yeah. Fine. Um not a kid though.” She smiled at you. You felt doubly guilty for being rude earlier.

“You’ve _goat_ to excuse me my dear, but when you’ve been around as long as I have everyone seems to be a ‘kid’.”

Surprised, you laughed. She was over exaggerating her tone, so you couldn’t help but catch the pun. She was alright for a…whatever she was. Better not to ask.

“My name is Toriel, and I am the caretaker of these ruins. It has been quite some time since a human has fallen down here.” You frowned at that. Sure you hadn’t seen the crevice before you fell in, but surely some curious little kids had gotten stuck down here before. Surely if there were strange creatures living underneath the hill outside of town – or ruins buried underneath it - you’d know.

Before you could question her, she continued. “You must be tired and hungry. Here, let me take you to my home where you can recover.” She was pretty nice. Very different from the scary guy from earlier. Your stomach let out a noise of complaint.

You nodded easily, and let her guide you down the tunnels. As you walked she explained how the ruins were very old and littered with traps left over from the great human monster war.

“Human-Monster War?” You questioned. She nodded, triggering the release that opened the door.

She seemed sad as she spoke, like she had been there, but as she walked and talked her voice sounded practiced and professional.

Toriel told you how long ago humans and her race, monsters, had lived in harmony. Monsters had magic, humans had strength of will. There were clashes at times, differing opinions. It lead to war, and at the end of it the humans trapped monsters underneath the mountain. Where they remain to this day.

But that’s not the history you’d learned. That wasn’t even in any of the myths and legends and stories you’d heard as a kid. “Is this for real?” You questioned. “That doesn’t make any sense! In fact, that’s impossible! Even if we completely forgot about all of this, someone would have found you by now! The mountain isn’t even that big! It’s not even a proper mountain! It’s just a large hill!”

You checked your head for wounds, for a sign you’d hit it too hard and that this was all a concussion caused dream.

* * *

 

There was rushing darkness.

Flowers.

You waited...

Somebody came.

Seeing you sitting in the golden flowers and sunlight, Toriel rushed over to you. Kneeling down she gave you an even more concerned look than the last two times you’d bumped into her. “My child are you injured?”

You shook your head. “No. I’m not. Which is weird right?” There wasn’t much reason to ask her, if she was a hallucination she knew as much as you did. If she wasn’t… Well. You not being injured would probably be the least weird thing about falling into this cave for the fifth time today.

She introduced herself again. Offered to take you home and feed you. Explained about the traps left over from the human-monster war. It was… repetitive. But she said it all like this was new information to you. And your stomach really was unhappy with its current empty state.

Since you opening your mouth to say anything disagreeable triggered you falling again you kept your mouth shut, only commenting when it’d be rude not to.

You were beginning to get an idea of the sort of game you were playing. The rules seemed to be, play nice or do it again. _Fucking skeleton._

It wasn’t like you had anything against being nice, but you tired and hungry and confused and probably more than a little entitled to your anger.

Toriel took your hand and guided you through a spiked trap, the deadly looking points decompressing easily underfoot. She told you a little about the ruins, and how grand life was down here before the war. How she cared for the flowers and the creatures here. There were introductions to some of those creatures, and you managed to get by with a smile and a wave. She took you home. Baked you a cinnamon butterscotch pie and lent you a bed to sleep in.

Over all she was a nice lady, who didn’t deserve your venting. So you decided to save it. For the skeleton. Not because that’s how he wanted you to be, but because he was the only one who deserved it. Besides. You didn’t really want to fight. Just… Make friends.

There was darkness. But it did not rush. It waited. You slept.


	2. Chapter 2

His brother called him lazy. And he was. Between a being that had complete control over their realities time line, the fact that nobody else remembered what was going on between these shifts, and the fact that the _only_ promising subject that he could have used to solve this problem had finally self-destructed… well there wasn’t a lot he could do.

He hadn’t known at first that Frisk would be the key. Just another kid who’d fallen down here, right? But that kid had so much determination that they had the power over time he needed, but by the time he’d realized it was too late. He’d already set up a routine. To change it would admit that he was different, would put the anomaly on guard against him. So he had to be subtle. But his nudging and judgement meant nothing in the end. Frisk and the virus that was the Fallen were gone for good. And here the monsters remained trapped.

The kiddo had done a bit of good though. On trips they’d made that ended with the Monster’s free onto the surface he’d been able to do some research. They weren't trapped exactly as they thought, under the mountain. He had studied the histories and scientific feats of the human race – not that anime or entertainment crud that Alphys collected.

Had they been, as they thought, not even a mile below the surface they would have been found. That was irrefutable. Magic could be studied seen monitored... The barrier emitted a type of energy impossible for modern technology to be unaware of it. If monsters could figure out, so could the humans. They may not have understood the significance of what they found, but they would have _found_ it.

No. They weren’t trapped underground of this human world. This may not even be the same world they had been exiled from. Well… That the monsters had been exiled from.

As best as he could figure, they were trapped in a pocket dimension of their own. The trash that fell down from above? Was literally slipping through the cracks between their closest reality anchor.

The good trips never lasted though. Either Chara made a desperate bid for control of Frisk’s body, or the true anomaly decided to send them all back.

Doing the same thing over and over again gets pretty old, especially when you’re the only one who notices the difference. Probably why he slept all the time honestly.

The good news is the monsters in general, and his brother in particular, wouldn’t ever become as jaded to the world as Sans had. Even knowing that it was a complete and utter fluke that led the Font family to this dimension while escaping the fate of their own, even knowing that there was no possibility of this combination of things would ever again combine to lead to a situation such as this ever again, even knowing that if his plan succeeded one day there would be no chance of another reset… Sans couldn’t say that he was looking forward to freedom.

Freedom would mean change sure, but what did this new world have to offer him? What both humanity and monster kind called science was for baby bones in the field where he came from, and even the magic wielded by the monsters was pretty easy to figure out after so many years of study. He’d been stuck in the universe’s longest and most accurate social experiment, and could pretty easily predict how a single variable would ripple through the underground, the same principles to humanity had proven to be just as effective…

Maybe this was how Gaster felt before he stupidly jumped into the core. Oh. Yes. Everyone thought it was an accident. But in reality he’d gotten bored, power hungry, tired, and longed for that next best thing. … But Sans remembered something his father had forgotten. He had family. He had his brother. So he’d do what was best for Papyrus, not for himself. He’d make his brother happy. He’d waited however many years until the right subject came along, now he just had to subtly drive them into freeing them all, buy his brother a darn red convertible and ride off into that beautiful sunset.

It’d taken years of waiting. Tolerating his brother’s anomaly fan club, not drawing any attention to himself as anything more than a lazy joker. The darn thing didn’t like him, so hadn’t pushed. San’s had managed to stay out of its radar. It didn’t know that he remembered. He intended to keep it that way, until the last moment.

They had six souls, but there was no point in breaking the barrier until he had finally destroyed the anomaly. He had needed another Frisk, another human whose determination could be channeled into messing with time. For once he actually had to do his job – catch the fallen humans… But he really was lazy. Sans just kept using his strongest attack to wipe them out as they fell. The perfect subject was the one that would fall again.

And here you were.

He shook his head and glared at the screen, watching his temmie’s paw make yet another mistake. He sighed and hit reset. This might take a while. It’d be easier if he could do more actively to influence the decisions the human made, or at least give them a set of instructions. Even easier to harness the human’s soul completely and use the power himself. But no. Sans couldn’t make Gaster’s mistake. He wouldn’t get blinded by being the only one smart enough to know what was going on. Wouldn’t take matters into his own hands preemptively. Wouldn’t disappear for good. And wouldn’t ever forget he had a family to take care of.

The power was the humans. Let them keep it. Let their determination grow to unstable levels. Let them challenge the anomaly. Eventually they’d have enough to overpower the anomaly, destroying it for good. If they didn’t self-destruct like the last one had… Well he’d taken away their will to fight for a reason. There would only be good runs now, and he would end any threat to the perfect happy ending he intended to build for his brother.


	3. Chapter 3

You managed to leave the ruins after only a few more attempts.  It had been painful to learn that the nice old lady who you'd come to care for would rather you died at her hands than see you leave and suffer the fate that awaited you beyond the ruins.    
  
You had to agree with her on one account - that children had been falling down here and dying tragically to free the monsters from under the mountain was terrifying and horrible. But you had to get home, and you doubted the jerk of dead guy would be too happy about you passive aggressively deciding to live in the ruins forever just to subvert whatever the hell he was up to.  
  
It was cold on the other side of the door. Pristine snow covered trees as far as the eye could see stretched before you, and you decided to give up on logic. Real or not, obviously thinking about the way things 'should' work wasn't going to help you here.    
  
It was eerie and quite, even your steps sounded muffled. It was an expectant, watchful sort of feeling that haunted your steps down the forest path. You were tense and on edge as you waited for something to happen.  
  
The road stretched onward but nothing followed you.  
  
The bridge was barred but no protest arose from you crossing it.  
  
The sentry station was abandoned but nothing came to drag you away.  
  
Your mind conjured shadowy horrors as you traveled the lonely way... But nobody came.  
  
You had no way of telling the time - your phone had died ages ago and the light level never changed. Despite the scenery changing it felt like you could walk forever among the trees and gain no distance. Obviously the creatures beneath the 'mountain' weren't ghosts, but it was hard not to think you might be in this empty place. A lonely phantom lost in Purgatory.  
  
Now there was an awful thought. What if you were dead? Everything felt too real - to solid to be a hallucination or a dream.  
  
Determination coursed through your veins, warming you from the chill in the air and in your mind. It didn't matter. The skeleton and Toriel had both said you could leave if you kept moving forward. So that is what you'd do. Nothing would stop you from getting out of here and giving that jerk a piece of your mind. You would succeed. You would.  
  
Crunching echoed around you, moving faster than your own strides could account for. Stopping you listened to the sound get closer, until just up ahead you could make out a tall form barreling towards you. You stood your ground and waited, trying to remember what you had learned so far about 'battling' monsters.  
  
Play nice...and when playing nice doesn't work, play nice harder.  
  
You may be filled with determination to see this through - but the universe apparently wanted to test your resolve. It was another skeleton. A taller one with an angry frown, and serious looking black and shiny body armor. If a skeleton in fuzzy slippers could tear things out of you and alter everything you understood about reality... What could this one do?  
  
You shoved the fear down. So you couldn't fight back. You could aggressively make friends though. Preemptively you smiled and waved, like he was a long lost friend.  
  
The world went black.


	4. Chapter 4

Sans didn’t know when the last time he slept was. Funny that. As if all the time spent asleep had been him trying to save up energy for this project.

Isolated and working until its completion. Just like old times.

The room he was in was little better than his own. Perhaps bleaker as it lacked personal touches. He didn’t mind. The computer screen was all he was here for. The dog slept on, seemingly oblivious to the curse his random barking had inflicted upon an entire sentient race. Perhaps every dimension’s god was like that. Innocent and unaware of the trials and tribulations that came with existence…

 _Enough of that._ Sans shook his already weary head and focused on the glow of the monitor.

He had a game to play.

His subject had taken to the game rather quickly. Maybe it was the lack of a vengeful soul coming along for the ride, but he doubted it. It looked like you were paying attention.

Learning.

You had spent fifteen minuets trying to add a toy knife you’d found in the ruins to your inventory. Since Sans had taken away your ability to fight, ripped the will of it out of your soul, you shouldn’t have had the capability of picking it up at all. He’d thought about resetting right then and there as a warning, but you’d talked with several of the ruins inhabitants by then and seemed content with the limitations placed on your interactions with them.

The question then was, if you wanted to make friends, why did you want the knife?

It shouldn’t have taken Sans as long as it had to figure it out. You were _experimenting_.

At first your hand wouldn’t close around the handle. Then after a few minutes of approaching it with differing expressions you’d managed it. When you went to slice it through the air with aggression, your hand dropped it. Pretending to treat it as a plane had curtailed this reaction, but it became obvious to both of you that even if you pretended your hardest you wouldn’t be able to hit anyone or anything with the knife as a weapon.  

Sans had indeed removed any and all means of you defending yourself or doing others harm.

Despite the results of your testing, you’d seemed pleased by what you had discovered. He didn’t know what to make of that really. Were you of the scientific mind and happy to have a hypothesis proven correct? Of a more pacifistic nature and happy you couldn’t cause others pain? Or even more worrisome… Were you one of those humans who was so enamored of violence that you’d found a way around it that he hadn’t already thought of or prepared for?

Human souls were a powerful thing - especially the determined ones.

So it was with a pensive expression, hand hovering over the reset button, he watched you initiate the fight with his brother. He hadn’t realized that humans could start fights properly, but then again he’d only ever seen children fall into this world. They may not have the strength of a fully grown adult's will to manipulate the latent magic to interact with this reality's make up.

You were learning fast, he’d have to make sure to keep you under tight control.

Watching you square off against his brother made Sans soul tighten. Papyrus hadn’t been taking the last few days well. He’d become very serious in the time he’d been ‘missing’ – so much so that Undyne had finally caved and made him a part of the Royal guard. His usually exuberant brother had barely reacted to the news, accepting his official armor with uncharacteristic grimness.

Time and time again he’d seen his brother forgive Frisk and the child’s parasite as they murdered Papyrus. Now that Sans was missing… Well apparently he wasn’t feeling in the forgiving mood.

…

You really sucked at dodging.

...

Good thing you could take a hit.


End file.
